CIE is to take its outdoor media in-house from 1 January 2010. A new company will take on most of Titan Outdoor's 40-odd staff and will be led by James Barry, current chief executive of Titan Outdoor in Ireland.
The contracts and assets of Titan Outdoor Ireland, including billboard, malls and supermarkets not associated with CIE, will also be operated by the new company.
It is expected that CIE will re-tender the contract when the market improves. Don Allman, president and chief executive of Titan Worldwide, said the company would be interested in tendering at that time.
Allman added: "During 2009, the Irish market was down more than 40% compared with the previous year. We went to CIE and talked to them about the situation. We could never have contemplated that we would be 45% down. We attempted to revise the contract, but ultimately both parties decided it was in our mutual best interest to terminate it at the end of this year."
By effectively taking the contract in-house Allman said CIE was avoiding avoiding putting the contract out to tender in a difficult year. He added that CIE staff recognised Titan had "done an excellent job for all the years up to 2009".
Although Titan Outdoor sold its UK billboard assets to fellow outdoor media owner Primesight at the beginning of September, Allman said Titan was not planning to leave the UK market.
Allman added: "We sold the billboard assets in the UK so we could concentrate on the rail, mall and supermarket environments. The results have been positive in relative terms. We have done the work to get through this time and get to the other side."
Titan secured the outdoor media contract for CIE, which is similar to the Network Rail deal in the UK, in late 2005, after the original preferred bidder Maiden Outdoor - which Titan went on to buy - was unable to assure CIE it was financially secure.
Titan then purchased Bus Media, which Barry ran as managing director, from its shareholders in 2006.
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